


The Chip Aspect of Murder

by ThanRein



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Blood, Child Abuse, Dark Dean Winchester, Dark Thoughts, Injury, M/M, Murder, Oblivious Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 17:32:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12562560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanRein/pseuds/ThanRein
Summary: He looked a bit weirded out as he turned his head to the side, looking at Dean through one eye. Does he realise how unsanitary licking knives was? Eating people was pretty gross, too. Who knows where they've been.Dean looked completely unfazed and wasn't just imagining the germs.





	The Chip Aspect of Murder

**Author's Note:**

> So...yeah.  
> Alrighty.  
> I own nothing. There. Done.
> 
> Let's do this.

Age Four

“Dean? Mary?” John called up the stairs. He’d fallen asleep and something woke him up. He couldn’t tell what it was, not yet. “Dean?” His eldest was usually the one who got spooked easily, becoming paranoid like only the child of a hunter could at the feeling of anything out of the ordinary. He got to the top of the stairs.

“DADDY!” 

A baby screeched in fear.

“JOHN!”

The orange light flickered to bright yellow.

“Dean!” The older boy’s room was right next to Sammy’s nursery, and closest to the fire spreading swiftly. He was Mary in the latter room and so he headed to Dean’s. The boy screamed in shock, pain, and terror as the fire ate away at his bed at chewed on his clothing, turning it into savage teeth that ripped away skin layers. John’s own parental need for protection, even at the risk of himself, hit him for the first and only time in his life.

He leapt into the room, trying to avoid the fire so he could get Dean out as swiftly as possible and not make himself a hindrance. 

He ripped the child off of the bed and into his arms, pulling off the burning clothes and patting out the flame of the articles less burned. Dean sobbed and curled into his father. He was shaking and tears cut through the smoke staining the boy’s cheeks. John jerked Dean closer to him as he fell into the untouched section of the hallway.

Sam was still crying and there was no sign of Mary.

He set Dean down, telling him to sit on the stairs until either the fire got too close or John came to get him out of there. Dean sat on those stairs, unmoving, never blinking as he stared into the fire inching ever closer to his position, he sunk lower unconsciously as the smoke got thicker and tears started to well up. His left side hurt, the ache spreading deep into his bones. Tears blurred and unblurred his vision as they systematically welled up and streaked down his cheeks. He couldn’t keep still any longer and he curled up on the top of those stairs, cradling his side and keeping an eye on the fire like his dad told him to.

Suddenly his father was in his face, his younger brother being held in his face with a blanket wrapped tightly around his body, but gingerly across his face where it was dampened. John yanked him up by his uninjured shoulder back to his feet.

“Take your brother and go!” John shouted, shoving his youngest into the arms of the eldest and shoving them out the door, down the staircase. His arm and shoulder screamed at him that this was not okay as Sammy’s weight pressed into the missing flesh. Dean nearly fell, his unsocked, burnt feet sliding on some article of clothing on the wooden floors. It was awful; the smoke burned Dean’s nose and lungs and his saliva was thick and was quickly drying up, making the burning sensation so much worse. Sammy had a blanket over his face; it should be better for him, hopefully.

“It’s okay, Sammy. I promise,” Dean whispered to his brother, clutching the bundle close. He wound his way through the house carefully, but swiftly. The stairs seemed to be slicked with oil yet made his feet sticky at the same time. When he came to the door he flung it open only to fumble with its screen counterpart. It took a few tries and the smoke reached the lower level, curling above their heads. John still hadn’t come downstairs. 

He ran outside, to the edge of the grass on the other side of the street. His feet were protesting louder than the blood pulsing deafeningly in his ears. His adrenaline rush allowed him to be unaware of the blisters popping and blood imprinting his footprints into the concrete and asphalt of the sidewalk and road. And he waited. John didn’t come out. He heard a shout and a cry before John came running. The father joined his sons, pulling them close to his side as he gazed at the burning home. The flames danced in a blurry mess once the tears hit. He picked up Sam from Dean’s arms and snuggled his face into the fresh blanket that smelled of smoke and Mary’s perfume.

The last thing Dean would remember in twelve years would be the fire department and ambulance sirens screeching into the night.

Three days found the three males in the hospital, getting treated for burns and respiratory damage. Dean was the one worst off. He had bandages wrapped tightly around his arm, abdomen, and feet. The report came in on what likely happened based off of medical assessment. They think his clothing caught fire from the blanket on the bed. The medical report got this from the type of wounds and the patterns they formed in his flesh. There were burns on forty percent of his body. Dean was still deep in the woods and had a high chance of death. 

John hadn’t left the hospital room since he brought in his two kids. He’d been waiting for the police to show up and interrogate him or tell him what happened. Maybe both. It was only now that they decided to show up.

“Mister John Winchester?”

“That’s me.” Dean didn’t even move from the officer’s loud voice. John had whispered. It took away from the attempt to believe that he was only sleeping, not in a medical coma. It made the situation hurt just that much more.

“Can we speak with you for a minute?”

“Yeah...sure.”

“Shall we step out in-”

“I’m not leaving him here. I’m not moving,” he whispered harshly. John look up at the cop for the first time since the man had entered. The man looked tired and his uniform looked pristine. His hair was still wet from what must have been a recent shower.

“Alright, Mister Winchester. I just have a few questions for you.” The man pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. John gestured to the empty seat pushed into the corner of the room. The officer sat obediently.

“My name is Officer Rivera. I’m leading the investigation into what might’ve happened in your home. What can you tell me about what happened?”

John retold his story. He remembered it vividly, but warped a slight detail or two, like where he found Mary bleeding and surrounded by fire. 

“And can you try to describe this intruder for me?”

“Yeah, uh...Tall? Dark hair, light skin, and weird pale eyes. They were something like yellow and it just…”

Rivera looked completely unfazed with John’s fuzzy story. “Is there anything else you can tell me about how you think this guy got in?” 

“We leave the nursery window open when it’s hot out. The breeze is good for Sammy. The screen was able to just be pushed in and it would’ve opened. I never got around to fixing it to the frame.”

“Is there anyone at all who would want to harm you, your wife, or your family in general?”

John swallowed, trying to think of what he could say. Nothing came to mind. What could he say that wouldn’t make him have to fake ignorance?

“Mary’s side of the family were into some pretty nasty business. You’d have to check them out to find that out. As for me, I’m not really the most social person. I don’t have friends but I don’t have enemies.”

The officer nodded and made another note on the yellow paper. John honestly couldn’t care less about the questions, answering all the rest as honestly as possible, skipping out on those two little omissions. 

Five Weeks Later

Dean was out of the hospital. He got out only a week or two ago once the doctors made sure no late infection set in and Dean would likely regain complete mobility in his left hand. His right was okay. His feet healed almost as nicely. He thinks he sounds like an old man when he speaks, so he doesn’t. That was the only thing he’s told John since he learned that his mother had died in the fire.

Sam got away unscathed. He was protected by his brother and father. He still acted like how most babies acted when they were six months old. 

John had a few first degree burns and suffered from smoke inhalation. He also hadn’t quite gotten over the fact that Mary was dead and that yellow-eyed devil had killed her. He didn’t really care that Dean didn’t speak still. He didn’t care that Dean was the one who fed and took care of the baby. He’d been swallowed by the obsession of revenge and the idea of killing that thing.

The family of formerly four, now three, were in a motel in Georgia, trying to gather research in lore and by finding hunters that help spread their knowledge piece by piece. However, that was rare, as most hunters were paranoid beyond belief. And refused to share things like that. John had learned, however, the methods they used to find hunts and do the research themselves through firsthand experience.

They’d yet to actually do anything yet beyond trying to find one, but at least they were completely prepared to find one...if they ever got around to actually going there, that’s a different story. Dean wondered what they were going to do once they got there.

“Hey, Dad?” His voice kinda hurt. He hadn’t spoken in awhile and his throat felt rough.

“Yeah?”

Dean asked his question. “I mean...we don’t know what to do.”

John froze. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t. There will not be a “we” until I say so, got it?” John snapped. Never once did he turn to Dean. Never once did he realise that that right there was going to be the last thing that Dean will say until he’s seven years old.

Age Five

Sammy turned two today. Dean was throwing a little party for the boy, just the two of them. He’d gotten a double chocolate breakfast muffin and shoved a sparkler in it, lighting once he’d gotten Sammy to sit still long enough that he could sing the birthday song to himself while Dean mouthed along to it.

John was out on a hunt. He’d been there for Sam’s first birthday, but not for Dean’s fifth. He’d gotten used to a certain few types of hunts, but he never told Dean anything. He just write it in a journal he practically kept under lock and key. 

That’s okay. Sam was happy. He loved Sam and he was okay with John not being there. Even if the man was physically present, he never was really there. Dean was the one who taught Sam to walk and talk and run and play and it was okay that their Dad wasn’t there. They didn’t really need him to be there to actually get things done.

He remembered when he was trying to get Sammy to walk. The infant was crawling like a madman all around every motel they came to, always pulling himself up into a standing position but never standing. He’d sat cross-legged in front of the ratty couch, carefully steering both Sam and himself away from that one spot on the floor that stained the carpet this yellow-green-brown colour and that one end of the couch where the dark material was covered in white spots. It was gross. Dean was wary of it.

“Deeeee…” the toddler babbled at his older brother, grabbing onto the cleaner part of the couch. He pulled on the fabric and then he was standing, wobbling a little bit. “Deeeee…!” It was absolutely adorable the way Sam mispronounced everything he’d been taught by Dean. Of course, the older boy didn’t even speak himself, so it was pretty unlikely that the infant would get everything right. He was basically being taught by Dean mouthing the word and the TV or radio pronouncing it for the boy.

A quick double snap of his fingers caught Sam’s attention and the toddler turned toward Dean with an eager expression. He knew what that sound meant; it was, essentially, equivalent to his name. Dean, seated a few feet away, held out his arms invitingly and the toddler grinned and hummed, trying to turn fully without letting go of the only thing keeping him up.

Dean hummed in response, trying desperately to convey that Sam needed to come to him. He shook his hands and Sam let out a high whine, still smiling his partially toothless grin. Then Sammy turned, letting go of the fabric only to return his grip as soon as he flipped around. Dean waved his brother toward him and then the toddler left much more willingly, tottling of shakily and Dean was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt by the time Sam actually got over to him and collapsed against Dean’s chest and into his arms. Sam giggled and rubbed his face into his older brother’s shirt gleefully, reacting more to Dean rather than realising the milestone that he just accomplished.

Dean also remembered when Sam started to talk properly. When John came back to them, he’d been kind in how he corrected Sam’s pronunciation. Which, sadly, wasn’t very often. So, at this point in Sam’s life, Dean was willing to break his little, unofficially declared vow of silence that he never noticed he took.

“Dean, I wan’ eat,” Sam whined, pointing at the lone cereal box on the kitchenette counter. 

“Want, Sam. Say “want”. Can you even do that?” John snapped, looking daggers at the older son but talking to the younger. He did that often and Dean thinks that John believes that Sam’s inability to talk properly or at the very least better than he is now is because Dean is being too stubborn to talk and teach him like he should be taught.

Dean swallowed and looked away. John snorted and muttered under his breath. “What the hell has the boy been teaching Sam?” Dean refused to look back up and it was likely for the better.

Those instances were generally the same, but one was something that neither Dean nor John would ever forget. 

It was one of those rare moments that Sam was doing something cute with Dean and it just put John in a good mood and he wanted to come play with them. Sam was still learning how to full-on run and it was adorable watching the little toddler waddle around after Dean, trying his best to keep up with his brother desperately. John stood at the edge of the room, watching them with a fond smile as he leaned in the doorway.

John jerked himself forward, bracing against the solid wooden doorframe. Dean turned his head ever-so-slightly so he could still see his father out of the corner of his eye. 

Dean collapsed into the couch, his brother staring him down. John sat next to him, resting his elbows on the top of his knees. He looked at the younger child with a smile on his face. “Come ‘ere, Sammy.”

“Da-addy-y!” the baby cheered, holding out his arms as he ran. John doesn’t remember smiling this hard since Sammy’s birthday. It was starting off a good day. This was nice. John didn’t know what was keeping him from doing this more often. He opened his arms to the child calling out for him, his glee rising as Sam baby-ran closer and closer before sidestepping him and jumping up on Dean’s lap.

Oh. Right. That was why; Sam was convinced that Dean was his dad. Awesome feeling right here. It hurt that his oldest was turning the youngest against him, slowly getting him to hate him, ignore him, think of him as nothing. John snarled at the green-eyed boy silently.

Dean’s eyes had widened and he quickly redirected Sam into their father’s lap, but it was too late. The damage was done and there was nothing any of them could do about it. John pretended to brush it off like the redirection was an acceptable substitute for his child calling him “dad”. John hugged Sam close and the child responded with a tight squeeze. Dean didn’t notice when John continued to glare at him over Sam’s head. 

John brought the two kids to a nearby diner for a meal that wasn’t oatmeal, cereal, or peanut butter and maybe jelly sandwiches. Sam eagerly coloured messily over the cheap paper with equally cheap crayons while Dean and John decided what they were going to eat. It had been a few months since they mutually decided that instead of getting one of the kiddie meals for Sam, they’d just get something they could rip apart and give to him as finger food. One of them almost always ordered fries or fruit to go with their meal.

John ordered the fries this time. He watched Dean with well-veiled hatred and disgust as the child pointed to his food choices. 

“Oh, is he deaf?” the waitress asked politely. She didn’t want to be rude or get mad at the kid if he didn’t respond to a verbal command or question.

“No, he isn’t.”

The waitress-her name tag read “Deanne”, which was kinda funny- was obviously taken aback by the sharp bluntness of the answer. “Oh?”

“It’s, uh...selective mutism. He doesn’t want to speak, and refuses to this day.”

“I understand. My aunt went through a serious car accident when she was twelve and didn’t talk for six years. Don’t worry, sir. He’ll find that it’s time for him to talk eventually. It might not be now, but that’s okay.”

John let out a tight, obviously fake and appeasing smile and she took the hint and scurried away to the kitchen. Dean looked after her curiously until he heard a mean comment from John, about how at least his son wasn’t the only fuck-up in the world. Dean looked down and didn’t look John in the eye. 

The waitress didn’t return; they got the only other server. He looked nervous around John and didn’t really try to talk to Dean, but was friendly with both siblings enough. He was the one who brought them their bill and got them set to leave once they’d finished their meals.

The car ride back to the motel was painfully quiet. Sammy fell asleep at the diner and slept soundly in the crunky old car seat they picked up for dirt-cheap once Sammy outgrew the one they’d gotten when he was an infant. Dean stared out the window, unmoving until they’d pulled into the parking lot in front of their room. He hopped out and went to open Sammy’s door to get him out when John stopped him. 

“You get inside, I’ll bring him in.” Dean looked confused but did as he was told. He unlocked the door and went in, only looking back once to see John cradling Sammy gently against his shoulder so he’d still have a hand free to shut the car door quietly. He held the door open for his father, who brushed past him wordlessly and actually a bit roughly.

Dean just kinda sat there, on the bed he shared with Sammy since it was pressed up against the wall. He was shouldered out of the way so John could kneel on the bed. He waited to be told what to do by John and nothing came as John placed Sammy down close to the wall, making sure he was far enough that he wouldn’t roll off Dean’s side of the bed.

The patriarch leaned back and admired his sleeping son and mourning what he could’ve been underneath the mothering of Mary, instead of Dean. Instead. Of. Dean. 

Dean yelped in shock more than pain when John grabbed his hair and dragged him away from the bed, onto the other side of the room, split by a really weird wall divide. He clawed at his father’s hand fruitlessly, short nails drawing blood easily. He was thrown to the floor once they got far enough away from Sammy. 

The kick delivered to his stomach was the first of many blows to come to him that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts and comments appreciated.


End file.
